How to Treat Head Lice with Olive Oil

When you realize that your child has head lice you may have to choose between a traditional OTC lice treatment and several home remedies for head lice. Among them, olive oil is one of the most effective and simple ways to get rid of these parasites.

The olive tree has exceptional therapeutic properties. In fact, all parts of the tree possess interesting properties for medical use. Our ancestors in ancient Greece used olive oil as an ointment to treat aches, ulcers and even cholera.

They used the leaves of the olive tree as a base, astringent and purifying, as well as preparations made from leaves and olive oil to cure all kinds of inflammations.

Moreover, the flowers, bark and ash of the olive tree were included in many medicinal preparations.

Several informal studies showed the effectiveness of vegetable oils in the treatment of lice.

A test (not a study) conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health found that lice submerged in olive oil for two hours die asphyxiated.

Other studies have shown that it takes more than 8 hours to suffocate the lice with a substance such as olive oil.

The effectiveness of olive oil is explained by the fact that by coating the skin of adult lice, it deprives them of oxygen.

After some time, as they can no longer breathe, they die.

How to apply the olive oil treatment for head lice

You can definitely use olive oil to help you get rid of head lice. Here are 4 steps that can help you.

Step #1 : Buying olive oil

First, you may need to buy olive oil and be asking yourself these questions : does it matter what type of olive oil is used to get rid of lice? Should you get Extra Virgin Olive oil or will regular pure olive oil work?

In theory, you can buy any type of olive oil, but here’s the catch: you’re going to put it on your hair or your child’s hair, which means it will be in contact with the scalp, that absorbs about 50% of what we put on it.

This means that you want to use a good quality oil, because you probably wouldn’t want any chemicals or pesticide residues to be in contact with the scalp of your children.

Step #2 : Coat the hair with olive oil

Simply coat your child’s hair with olive oil.

Place something on the head so that air can’t come in. It could be plastic wrap for adults. However, this is not recommended for children, for safety reasons.

Always be around and do not leave the child on its own.

Step #3 : Shampoo and rinse the hair

After about 8 hours (time can vary, there is no scientific proof that 8 hours are either enough or too much), wash the hair with regular, mild shampoo. Make sure you rinse well.

You may need to do several shampoos and rinse several times to completely remove the oil.

Now it’s time for the crucial step: combing.

Step #4 : Combing through the hair

Olive oil alone will not eliminate head lice from the hair; combing is required. You need to comb the hair with a head lice comb so you can remove dead lice.

You should know that this remedy, just like any other head lice home remedy, might not work 100%, so you might still have some live lice after applying the oil and combing. In this case, you’ll need to remove them manually or repeat the treatment.

Will this olive oil treatment work on nits?

The head lice olive oil treatment has not been tested on nits, which are the eggs laid by adult female lice. The test conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health did only prove the efficiency of olive oil on lice, not their eggs.

So, it is likely that olive oil will not work on nits as it does on adult lice.

However, there is a very good natural head lice treatment that you can use to unglue the nits from the hair shaft, it is vinegar. It is then much easier to comb them out, which remains an essential step in the process.

What about essential oils?

Essential oils are volatile oils, very fragrant, obtained by steam distillation of flavoring plants. Some oils contain up to 300 different molecules, depending on the plant used, on the time of harvest, on the climate and quality of the distillation.

To give you an idea, about 100 kg of fresh lavender are needed to extract 1 kg of essential oil.

The essential oils contained in many plants have insecticidal, antibacterial and antifungal properties. When used for therapeutic purposes, be sure to use quality products, and ideally from organic farming.

For the perfect herbal head lice treatment, consider adding a few drops of an essential oil such as lavender oil or tea tree oil to the olive oil, as this can also help prevent another infestation, promote healing and add a pleasant smell that children will like.

Olive oil can help you get rid of adult lice by suffocating them. You’ll need to apply the oil by coating the hair well, and you’ll need to leave it on the hair enough time. Time varies and no scientific studies could determine a time that would work for everyone; a minimum of eight hours is often suggested.

Then, rinsing the hair well and combing out will rid the hair of dead lice. The next step is to check for lice again and repeat the treatment if needed.

14 Comments

sweettart on November 15, 2011 at 5:53 am

I have just heard lice is going around my children’s school. (Tell me something new) And I had no idea that vinegar and olive oil would do this. The crazy thing? I just started using homemade shampoo which as olive oil in it and also conditioner which is just 1 part vinegar to 3 parts water. The vinegar actually works as good or better than anything I’ve ever tried. You don’t need to use any kind of commercial conditioner. Anyway back to the lice, I was really excited to see this site and to try out this stuff on my kids without burning away their scalp with the commercial lice shampoo. I remember my mom using that stuff on me. Ouch!

Mark on February 9, 2012 at 5:15 am

Well when my 3 year old got lice from her cousin, I freaked out. I read up on the life cycle and everything else I could find out. Turns out when the bugs are resistant to the poisons they say to use olive oil, so we skipped the poison and went right for the olive oil. Waited, washed, removed the few nits we could find, washed her linens, bagged up all her stuffies, for two weeks. The babies hatch out in one to two weeks from the nits but they need to get a blood meal or they will die within a day or two of hatching. So we just did the oil treatments for three weeks, on Saturdays. Never found another nit or had anymore lice. Whenever they find lice on a kid at her school we just look for nits and do an olive oil treatment. 5 years later and we have never had a re-infestation.

Debbie on December 19, 2012 at 4:04 pm

I have two teenage girls now but when my youngest daughter was in grade school I had a terrible time with head lice affecting her. We tried the Nix treatment and found that not only did it not work, it caused her to have a seizure due to the malathion that is in the head lice treatment! I used the olive oil treatment after that and we never had a problem again. I highly recommend this treatment and it works especially well if it is left on overnight and rinsed out and combed through in the morning.

mommy911 on January 21, 2013 at 11:25 pm

Hi, I have a daughter and never in our lives had we had lice before.I had thought that my daughter had a dry scalp so, i put an olive oil treatment on on her hair. later that day i checked her hair and saw she had these little adults and nits on her hair ! I did not know what to do so I immediately ran to Walgreen’s and had bought a shampoo treatment to fight the lice ! later that afternoon I drove home and quickly put it on her hair. we then combed everywhere and had gotten all the lice\adults off. The only thing is that the eggs\nits were still there so I am going to put some vinegar on her scalp and hopefully the nits will come off, wish me luck 🙂

EmilyGraves on April 30, 2013 at 4:14 am

Also put a little peppermint oil into your normal shampoo. Its a natural deterrent to lice. They avoid your kid and your kid smells great!

Crystal on August 18, 2013 at 11:34 pm

This is the 2nd time my 5 year old has gotten live in 3 years. I always use the olive oil it works like a charm! I also use it on myself since I have very long thick dark hair. The trick is to fully saturate the hair in the olive oil, I don’t mix anything else in it cover with a shower cap or plastic shopping bag. I leave it in my 5 yr old for only about an hour since I’m able to comb through it and ill leave it on mine for 2-3 hours. I use dawn dish soap twice to wash it out then regular shampoo. All the bedding is either washed or put in dryer and stuffed animals baged up and put in garage for a couple of weeks and vacum couches and such. After a few days I repeat the process and then one week later (again wash or dry the bedding and vacuum). After that we are completly lice free! It’s not expensive and it’s natural so no harsh chemicals.

Rose on September 17, 2015 at 1:01 pm

I have long hair the olive oil works great. Then I put straight vine soaked my head then comes out my hair with nit comb with more vineger mixed with water for 3hours.next day only found a few nits. Combed them out.will comb my hair for next few days. It does work and I did it myself wasn’t easy but you do what ya have to hope it works for you.

Anna on June 15, 2016 at 3:07 am

I have had very good results with mixing 4 oz olive oil, 4 oz coconut oil (liquid not cream) and 2 oz of tea tree oil in a spray bottle. I saturate the hair. Wait 30 minutes and start combing out the nits. Keep the mixture on the hair for 4 hours and the wash the hair.

Mahika Arora on January 11, 2017 at 6:32 am

I followed so many suggestions and prescription by doctors to get rid of lice problem. But at-last my cousin recommend me some natural remedies described above. She sent me a link of this blog and i used all remedies regularly mentioned by you. Now, I am completely free from this embarrassing problem. Olive oil is best solution to cure so many problems. So, Now i like to use it in my daily life.

michelle on March 11, 2017 at 7:53 pm

I really can not begin to tell you how thankful I am for this site. My 9 year old daughter brought home nits, no sign of actual lice. But I am positive if the nits were there a bug had to have been there at some point. When she brought them home to me I FREAKED!! Not at her, but internally I was a mess. We did OTC and it did not work. So we did the Apple Cider Vinegar for 15 minutes, rinsed and then applied a small amount of Extra Virgin Olive Oil to oil our hair a bit, and began the comb out. Afterwards we did a really good Olive Oil hair mask with shower cap, and in the morning we combed again after a shampoo. I can not express enough how well this worked. AMAZING results!! This was Tuesday and as of now we have not been able to locate anything. We will however continue to do the Apple Cider Vinegar and a small amount of Olive Oil with a comb out for a couple of weeks. THANK YOU FOR THE HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!

Billy Joe Cain on June 25, 2017 at 5:03 am

We have had a lot of luck (i.e. it has worked every time, 5 out of 5) by doing olive oil and combing it every 3-5 days. This makes it easy to comb out any lice. (Easy to do long hair and we can comb really close to the scalp, etc.) I believe it works because we continually comb out any lice before they mature and can leave more eggs.

Sept. 7 2017, I have to say the flat iron idea is a good one! Just did the olive oil n shower cap treatment and was dreading the thought of picking the numerous nits/eggs our of her very full long hair first thing in the morning before school. The flat iron idea should cut down the the picking chore to at least half (not that there is a lot) if not fry the ones I might miss. Great Idea! Thanks A lot!

Gretchen on February 20, 2019 at 6:02 am

I traveled on the train and came home with an itchy scalp from lice. After reading this I saturated my hair with olive oil and slept in a shower cap with a beanie over it. After washing my hair in the morning, I easily combed through and removed many nits from my curly hair. That evening there was no itching and nice shiny hair! Thank you

Disclaimer: This site is designed for informational purposes only and is not engaged in rendering medical advice or professional services. If you feel that you have a health issue, you should seek the advice of your Physician or Health Care Practitioner.You should always be very careful when dealing with head lice in children.